


Yuri Plisetsky Does Not Have Panic Attacks

by otayuriistheliteralbest



Series: YOI Ship Bingo [3]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Coping, Crazy, Gen, wait I wrote a friendship fic instead of otayuri??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 17:57:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12173874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otayuriistheliteralbest/pseuds/otayuriistheliteralbest
Summary: Yuri copes with panic attacks with bath bombs. But don't call them panic attacks, Yuri Plisetsky does not have panic attacks.





	Yuri Plisetsky Does Not Have Panic Attacks

**Author's Note:**

> While this may not be the same as other people's experiences, I gave Yuri my own experience with anxiety attacks. It isn't the same for everyone. I just want to give fair warning because it's very much internal, and the way Yuri copes with it is not very healthy, especially since he doesn't acknowledge that he needs to seek help.
> 
> Thank you to Helle for betaing for me!

Yuri never really had the time to stop and take stock of himself. He was always pushing himself, in training both on and off the ice, in his friendship with Otabek Altin, in making sure that his _dedushka_ was taken care of, in everything else that built up in his life. Even Potya was given more love and attention than Yuri ever really gave to himself.

Sometimes it was just too much, and he became overwhelmed with everything going on around him. It made him shut down, made him want to block everything out and just curl up in a ball in the dark, cover himself up with a blanket and _will_ all of the stress in his life to _go away_. Yuri was eighteen, for fuck’s sake, he shouldn’t have to fight himself to breathe, to remove this block from his mind and just _do something_ and go about his normal life.

This time, the tight feeling in his chest had started when he wasn’t able to get ahold of Otabek all day; a seed of doubt formed, of feeling like maybe his best friend was ignoring him. Even if that wasn’t the case, and he knew that they had a three-hour time difference and Otabek was probably just busy and not able to talk, it was still there, that thought in the back of his mind, that _what if_ feeling that he couldn’t shake. Then Yuri wasn’t able to land his quad salchow, something that he had been able to do without a thought for years now. He had fallen more times in that training session than he had in the past month, and Yakov yelled at him to go home and rest, because he clearly wasn’t with it at training and he didn’t want Yuri to injure himself.

Yuri heard all of this, but it was like background noise. Yakov didn’t think he was good enough, not today, maybe not ever. Maybe this was the end for Yuri, and he should just pack it in and become… what? A model? A barista? He scoffed and kicked at some loose gravel on the sidewalk with his shoe. _As if_.

He trudged up the walk to his apartment - the one exciting thing in his life, that he was finally able to move out of Lilia’s home and into his own apartment away from everyone else when he turned eighteen. Yuri felt mediocre, trapped into this image of him being the best of the best from the start with his senior debut, and now he felt… useless. Like he beat Viktor _fucking_ Nikiforov’s record, so why should he even bother anymore? He couldn’t do any better than he had done at fifteen, so what was the point to it all?

Yuri took a shuddering breath and unlocked his front door, shouldering his way in and dropping his gold lion backpack to the ground. He slammed the door shut behind him just to hear the bang and forced himself into his room and to the master bathroom.

The one thing that Yuri had found helped him when he started to spiral like this was the overwhelming heat of a bath. He turned the tap as hot as it could go and went over to the stereo in the bedroom to turn on the loudest, most obnoxious screamo heavy metal music he owned. It was the middle of the day, his neighbors shouldn’t be home, and if they were then they could go fuck themselves.

Yuri tugged his t-shirt over his head and left it in a heap on the carpet, followed by his track pants and briefs. He walked naked back into the bathroom to check on the water with a disinterested eye, turning it off when it was full enough. He picked up a purple bath bomb from the basket on the counter and tossed it into the overly-hot water. He watched, mesmerized, as the clear water turned a deep and sparkling purple. Yuri finally stepped into the tub when the bath bomb stopped pouring out, surrounded by the calming scent of lavender and bergamot. The water was too hot, but it shocked him into some kind of feeling, and he was able to take a deep breath for the first time in hours.

Yuri sunk down as far as he could in the bath, filling his senses with the pounding music and the smell and feel of the bath, and let his mind drift and just not think of anything at all. His tensed muscles loosened and he let out shuddering breaths, releasing everything that had been building up in the past who-knows-how-long until finally he felt that he could open his eyes again. He lifted an arm out of the water, admiring how his skin sparkled with the purple glitter from the bath bomb.

Mila had been the one to suggest bath bombs to him when she found out that he had been getting stressed - he didn’t want to use the phrase _panic attack_ because that so wasn’t him, Yuri Plisetsky didn’t get _panic attacks_ , no way - and he could have kissed her for the suggestion. Not that he would ever tell her that.

Yuri rolled his head back and forth on his neck, stretching his muscles out bit by bit until he finally felt the last of the tension release from his body. It was never fully gone, not really, but here in the bath was the one place that he really felt that he could get away from the noise and stress of his daily life. He was able to let his mind release from the strain. Yuri took more deep breaths, enjoying the feel of the too-hot water on his skin.

When he finally left the comfort of the bath what felt like hours later, the water had turned frigid and his skin was all pruny. Yuri hurried to throw his fluffy purple robe over his shivering body and snatched up his phone from the pile of clothes he’d left on the ground. He had missed three calls from Otabek in the past hour. Yuri jumped when the phone rang in his hand and caller ID showed a photo of a giant stuffed teddy bear. He swiped to answer the phone, putting it up to his ear.

“H-hey, Otabek. Sorry, I was in the bath and didn’t hear the phone ring,” Yuri mumbled, holding the phone to his ear with his shoulder while he toweled his shoulder-length hair dry.

“It’s okay, Yuri. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay,” Otabek said at the other end of the line. “I’m sorry you couldn’t reach me today, my coach was drilling me hard for being late and I barely had time to take a break. I never even got to look at my phone until I got home.”

Unwanted tears welled up in Yuri’s eyes, and he swiped them away angrily with the fluffy sleeve of his robe.

“It’s okay, I just… didn’t have a good day,” Yuri said, his voice thick from the unshed tears.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Otabek asked.

“N-no, it’s okay. Tell me about your day?” Yuri asked, laying down on the bed in his robe. He curled up in a ball and pulled the duvet over his head.

“Sure,” Otabek said, and started from the beginning of his day when he woke up late and had to rush to make it to the rink, more than an hour late. He made it funny in the way only Otabek could, and had Yuri laughing by the end of the story. The duvet cover had come off at one point, and Yuri felt more relaxed than he had in days.

“Thank you, Otabek. I needed that,” Yuri told his best friend, timid. Otabek had some inkling of what Yuri was going through, but the blonde had never told him explicitly.

“Anytime, Yuri,” Otabek replied. “I need to get to bed if I don’t want to be late again tomorrow. I just wanted to call you since we couldn’t talk today. I’ll text you when I wake up, okay?”

“Okay,” Yuri said, smiling to himself. He fell asleep curled around Potya, the small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the "self-love" square on my YOI Ship Bingo card and turned out VERY different from what I originally intended. Whoops.


End file.
